Chandigarh: From June 1, MC to link staff pay with biometric attendance
Chandigarh MC officials said the move has come as a majority of the employees do not come to office as per their schedule or leave early
To enhance transparency and accountability among the workforce and identify the regular absentees or the ghost employees, the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) is set to link salaries with the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) for all its employees, including regular, contractual, outsourced, and field staff from June 1, 2025.
This decision was taken in a review meeting held on Thursday, under the municipal commissioner Amit Kumar.
From April 1, biometric attendance had been made mandatory for all employees. Prior to this, only the office staff marked their attendance through a biometric system while the field staff used the old system of registering their presence on notebooks. Officials in the civic body said the move has come as a majority of the employees do not come to office as per their schedule or leave early. Also, the move aims to identify the ghost employees, especially those on the field duties.
“As part of this initiative, all MC employees must register on the NIC’s Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS). Attendance will be marked using NIC’s facial authentication via the AadhaarBAS/AadhaarFaceRD mobile application on personal smartphones. The salaries will be linked with the biometric system from June 1”, commissioner said.
It is worth mentioning that amid the financial crisis, MC is making efforts to rationalise its manpower after concerns were raised over a sharp increase in MC’s annual expenses related to outsourced manpower, and civic body’s inability to pay salaries of its staff amid the cash crunch. MC is also starting a comprehensive manpower audit to determine if the staff strength can be optimised, identify the ghost employees as complained about by several city councillors, and conduct a financial check of salaries to detect any irregularities.
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